探索频道英语听力 寻找失去的佛陀-09

I'd always wanted to explore this fortress because of its role in the forgotten piece of 19th century history, the secret spy wars between Britain and Russia, known as the Great Game. Afghanistan was the gateway to British India, and Russia wanted to control that gateway. Intrepid British and Russian army officers roamed the country in disguise, mapping and spying all the military routes. One of them was Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger. After being held under siege for months in the Herat citadel, it was Pottinger who saved the day for the Afghans.

Finally, the Persians began to breach the walls, and the Afghans on this side, seemed everything was lost. The Grand Vizier sat down on the dus. He was kinda give up. But Pottinger grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and marched him towards the invading Persians with his sword waving in the air. This absolutely terrified the Persians, they all fell back, and then the Afghans within the fort followed them out and they saved the city. Incredible story.

In a way, the Great Game sums up Afghanistan's problem in a nutshell: it's a country sandwiched between rival empires. So for invading armies, it's always been a battlefield on the way to somewhere else. How any of these armies were able to move through Afghanistan boggles the mind. The roads through the mountains are appalling. I'm now heading north, slowly drawing closer to the battlefront and the killing fields- the deadly legacy of more than 20 years of war.

The center of Afghanistan is one of the bleakest wildernesses in Asia. Everything here is influenced by one chilling fact: they've been fighting not for 20 years, but for 2,000 years. For Afghanistan has always been a land of invasion, rival warlords and violence.

"Beautiful a little castle, that? And you see them all up and down these valleys, they defend every strategic position. The trouble is when you're traveling in Afghanistan, you got to be really careful if you wanna go and explore one, because they are covered in minefields from both the Russian time and also from the civil war."

We are now deep in the mountains of central Afghanistan on the road to Mazar-e Sharif- the last major stop before the frontline.

The killing fields though extend all the way to the outskirts of the city. This is landmined country. And if that isn't enough, there's another scourge: a terrible drought has forced these people out of the nearby mountains into this place- an abandoned barracks in the middle of a battlefield.

vizier: a high official in some Muslim countries, especially in Turkey under Ottoman rule

scruff: the back of the neck

in a nutshell: in the fewest possible words

boggle: be startled or baffled